


Droit de Seigneur

by Anonymous



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: And yet, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, Holidays, Thanksgiving Dinner, That is the least necessary tag of all time in this fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:59:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22613713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Shiv just wants to make sure Rava knows what she's getting into.
Relationships: Kendall Roy/Rava Roy, Siobhan "Shiv" Roy/Rava Roy
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29
Collections: Anonymous





	Droit de Seigneur

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



It's Rava's third time meeting the Roys, and the first major holiday. As Logan carves slabs off the turkey like he's just acquired it in a hostile takeover, Rava is surprised by Shiv reaching an arm behind her to poke Kendall in the shoulder. "Hey, Ken," Shiv says, with the friendly smile Rava already distrusts. "You told Rava about the droit de seigneur, right?"

Kendall puts down his glass a little too hard. "Jesus, Shiv. You're doing this now?"

"Excuse me?" Rava says. She can't possibly have heard right.

"Droit de seigneur," Shiv repeats. She's still smiling, like this is a totally normal thing to say to her brother's girlfriend. "It's when the king—"

"I know what it is," Rava says. "I minored in medieval history. But... what?" She can't help glancing at Logan. She finds him so unappealing that it's hard to remember he provided half the genes for the man she loves.

Shiv laughs. "No, no," she says. "Not literally. I mean, Roy, king, it'd be funny, right?"

 _Ha very ha,_ Rava thinks.

"But no, what I mean is, when Ken went to college—"

"Shiv, please."

She steams right over her brother. "—He promised me that I'd get to fuck any girl he fucked. It was just a joke at the time, because we all thought he was gay."

" _Shiv._ "

"I'm making that part up," Shiv confesses. "Not very politically correct. Sorry!"

Across the table, Roman is openly grinning at them like nothing could be more entertaining than their little tableau: Kendall wanting to sink into the floor, Shiv with eyes gleaming, and Rava gaping like a stunned fish. With Roman's reputation, she would have expected him to be the Roy sibling making a pass. But he's not a predator like Shiv is, she realizes now. An enabler and an eager spectator, but not the hand holding the knife.

"The real story is, he said it to shut me up," Shiv says. "But a deal's a deal and my brother's a man of his word. Isn't that right, Ken?"

Kendall visibly gives up on trying to stop her. "I'm sorry," he says to Rava, much more sincerely than Shiv said it. "My family's a mess."

" _Oh_ yes," Shiv says. "But we wouldn't want you to marry in without being aware of just how _much_ of a mess." Her arm has been draped across the back of Rava's chair this whole time. Now it tightens chummily around Rava's shoulders. "I'm sure you wouldn't want that either."

"Shiv!" Kendall's face is agonized. 

"Oh shit, you hadn't told her—my bad, really sorry about that."

"It's fine," Rava says. She's surprised by how calm she is. "One of my rings went missing a couple of weeks ago, and I thought it might come back with a friend." She reaches for Kendall's hand and squeezes it (like Shiv is squeezing her shoulders) (but she doesn't want to think about that). "It's okay. Whenever it happens, it'll still be a wonderful surprise."

Shiv leans closer. Her breath is warm and wine-scented on Rava's cheek. "And then you get a second wonderful surprise," she says. "Me."

A server reaches around them with plates heaped high with turkey, mashed potatoes, and green beans. It's excruciatingly American, the way only immigrants can be. Rava thinks the server is a little distressed about having to put Shiv's plate down from the left instead of the right, but Shiv's got them pulled so tightly together that no one can get between them.

Well, if Rava's going to be a Roy—

She consciously relaxes her shoulders, knowing Shiv will feel it, and lets her calculating side take over. She turns the bizarre conversation over, pattern-matching it like a Rubik's cube. She finds a way to make it click into place. 

"You pulled this with your father's girlfriends," she says. "Right? The Roy sibling hazing. A venerable tradition."

It's Shiv's turn to stiffen up—only a little, but enough for Rava to know not only that she's right but that Shiv hadn't made the connection herself. Which is interesting, because it means Shiv actually wants to get in her pants and isn't just messing with her pro forma.

"Well," Rava says lightly, easing away from Shiv's arm and picking up her fork. "That's too bad. For a moment I thought you were serious. That could have gone somewhere interesting."

The sibling resemblance between Shiv and Kendall isn't often apparent, but she can feel them giving her identical wide-eyed looks. Roman graces her with a little nod, a hat-tip without a hat. Score one for Rava.

But as she slices a morsel of turkey breast, she feels Shiv's hand on her thigh. "It still could," Shiv says, low.

Rava really, really wants to hate the idea. There's so much about the Roys she wants to hate. But she wonders whether sharp, beautiful, transparently needy Shiv, like the Roy name and the Roy money and the Roy scion sitting stiff-backed and pale-faced to her right, might seduce her in all the same.


End file.
